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Actually they were good for nothing, unless you were surrounded by an environment struck constantly by conflict and horror. Something you would have picked up if you had read TFA instead of wasting 14232 hours of your life playing Tetris.

Did you ever roll your score through the signed int maximum, 32,767 points? Did you ever roll it back through zero? Did you know that there's a graphical display glitch in the score display: the old score is erased by writing the new score on top, so if the new score has fewer digits (-9,999 as opposed to -10,000, for example) the last digit will stay visible?

My current high score is -256, but that's not counting the time I rolled it through zero (the game didn't think that was a high score).

You're obviously not talking about the NES version, so which one are you referring to? I've always considered it the classic, I would be surprised to find out there's another gold standard for the game.

I know COD4 helps me by competing for my brain resources against homework. Without it, I'd be like Col. Kurtz from Apocalypse Now...."the horror, the horror".

I couldn't agree more.

Games for a long time have been known to have positive effects towards the user, instead of just negative. The things games do well as it says in TFA, they remove stress. I find it very helpful to come home after a long day and cool down with some PC gaming. It helps me unwind my brain.

I would think it is a case that PTSD normally fades over time. Paying Tetris during the early stages when it is strongest probably helps. Then after time as it fades and becomes more manageable then you don't have to play Tetris as much. And perhaps except for getting flashbacks of War you get one where those blocks are moving to fast for you. Which is less devastating, but you still have a similar rush.

Then after time as it fades and becomes more manageable then you don't have to play Tetris as much. And perhaps except for getting flashbacks of War you get one where those blocks are moving to fast for you.

Some people see the blocks falling after they've stopped playing. Thinking about it in relation to PTSD, I wonder if this isn't a minor form of stress disorder as well. Perhaps "post-tetris stress disorder" crowds out the effects of PTSD.

Really, all they did was show people something disturbing then immediately distract them with Tetris afterwards. I'm positive they could have districted them with anything and it would make a difference.

It is common knowledge that the best way to remember something is to put it in your brain then recall it over increasingly long periods of time. If you don't recall it (what they call "flashback" in the article) then the memory will naturally fade. It is at the beginning of a memory when it is weakest so it makes sense that if you distract someone and prevent them from recalling the memory then it will quickly fade.

If nothing else, it suggests a benign, free, easily found device that can be used to distract oneself after digging up those memories. May not be particularly profound, but it was worth writing up - Not everything is particle physics. Science that is easily understood by the public at large carries an inherent value well worth pursuing.

Really, all they did was show people something disturbing then immediately distract them with Tetris afterwards. I'm positive they could have districted them with anything and it would make a difference.

Very true. The more someone thinks about what they just saw, the more firmly it's going to be set into their mind. It's not at all surprising that distracting them (and thus focusing their mental energy elsewhere) lessens the effect of the traumatic memories.

From what I've seen people do primarily play Tetris to decompress and reduce stress. No won says Tetris is super fun or exciting. It's just something to absorb your attention after a hard day. I don't know if the effect it has on traumatic stress is an extension of that, but I tend to think it is.

Seriously though, I find tetris to be a whole lot of fun. And if you just start at level 9 every time, it can be pretty exciting, too. It doesn't quite have the clench factor of CMR3 or anything (slide slide slide CRASH - you can see how long it's been since I bought a new game though) but it can be quite engaging. Proof positive that graphics aren't everything - tetris works fine when drawn in text characters.

Some Tetris variants have a win condition. Notably, Game Boy tetris launches various rockets when you achieve certain scoring goals. It's not VERY exciting, but if you just think back to how exciting the Game Boy was when it had come out (especially at my age, it was pretty special for me being just at the perfect age to be awed by that little Z80-powered masterpiece - now I'm just duly impressed) then you can recapture a little of that excitement.

at least those grinds [usually] had an end goal. how is any game not a grind? you do stuff repeatedly to either level up or get past a stage so you can continue to do it repeatedly. not to say you don't have a good point, because I agree with you in some aspects, but the idea of calling things a grind is kind of redundant, imo. to get good at something, you probably do have to do it over and over. if the conditions kept changing, it may be

Meh, that version has a hold slot, much larger lookahead, and it appears to be fairly lax about letting you move and rotate pieces once they've landed (including rotations that would be physically impossible). Still impressive, certainly, but *much* easier than what I consider "classic" Tetris (TetrisDS has the similar properties, and hence it's also not particularly challenging, unfortunately... pity LockJaw is so klunky on the DS, as at least it let's you turn off all those "features":).

I completely agree, Tetris can be both fun and exciting, and I find the fact that it is "unbeatable" relaxing in its own way. Because you know you are going to lose at some point it takes the pressure off.

From what I've seen people do primarily play Tetris to decompress and reduce stress.

It doesn't reduce stress for me! Especially when some high ranked asshole comes into play me on Tetris Party for the Wii and quits after I beat him and before his ranking is affected. Fucking cocksuckers. If I ever find one of those motherfuckers I will pound them in the head with a Wiimote repeatedly until death occurs.

Oh, is that what you meant by reducing stress? Sorry, I got distracted.

From what I've seen people do primarily play Tetris to decompress and reduce stress. No won says Tetris is super fun or exciting. It's just something to absorb your attention after a hard day. I don't know if the effect it has on traumatic stress is an extension of that, but I tend to think it is.

So when my CS friends tell me the computer is some kind of stochastic state machine and that the CPU is never truly idle, it's really playing Tetris when I'm not using it?

I wonder if playing Minesweeper is effective against boss-inflicted stress.

I don't know where the poster works, but in most workplaces, boss-inflicted stress is caused by playing Minesweeper on the job. But then I suppose getting a pink slip is one sure way of never being stressed out by the boss ever again...

can be very therapeutic. The trick is to be able to regulate just how distracted you become. It's not going to help some one if they have PTSD and then get hooked on Tetris to the point where you can't live without it. Yes, that is an extreme.

My point is actually that Tetris is just the distraction and you can probably get similar results with any sort of simple mind stimulating puzzle like sudoku. Heck, I'm willing to bet any video game would help as long as, say, your PTSD was triggered by almost getting run down by six 18-wheelers and you sit down for a session of Big Mutha Truckers [wikipedia.org]. Course... if you don't have PTSD before playing that game you will after the fact...

I have to agree. As someone with PTSD (and not from going into battle; though going into battle in 8th grade, when I essentially got stuck with it, would have been interesting, I must admit...), any distraction can help. It can also make it worse by using it as a means of avoidance--and one of the sections for criteria for PTSD according to the DSM includes symptoms of avoidance that become significantly distressing.

Personally, I do like to play the more mind challenging games, as they do distract me, and t

Can't say I'm the biggest fan of Tetris, but Minesweeper, Sudoku, and other ones that require more thought are always more nice for me. Except when you can do "Expert" minesweeper in 100 seconds and feel like you're just looking at the numbers and not actually thinking about them... then it kinda sucks... but that's all good.

When I've played Tetris too much before going to bed, all I could think about, tossing and turning in the sheets, is blocks forever falling and falling, and trying to fit them all in, essentially playing the game in my head. I can easily see that business pushing out other thoughts.

I wonder if playing Minesweeper is effective against boss-inflicted stress

Dunno, I find that game to be a stress-inducing process in and of itself. I wouldn't be lining up to recommend it to PTSD patients either for obvious reasons (even though in Vista you can optionally swap them out for flowers [shellrevealed.com].

I did not have a stress disorder, but in 1995 I was home sick from work once when I felt lousy laying down and lousy sitting up. I chose to sit up and play Tetris (and maybe Chips Challenge which was also on the Microsoft Best of Entertainment pack) and after a while I felt better.

Last year I was in an airport waiting for a delayed flight during a kidney stone attack. I bought Internet access at through Boingo for the day and it helped me get through the attack.

Or maybe the other way around. I've noticed that when performing an activity that requires your unconscious/autonomic part of your brain to take over, memory recall will actively interfere with your ability to carry out that activity. We usually think of it as confidence or the ability to overcome distraction but I think it really comes down to clearing your mind of conscious thought/memories and allowing your other brain to take over.

Think about what it felt like to learn to type. At first, you had to t

Tetris was especially good to me back in the late 1980s when I was at university at Sheffield in the UK. There were a few Tetris Payout machines around the city that could hold up to £60 of cash.

The premise of this version was that you scored more points for lines cleared higher up the screen and you had to get as many points as possible in a fixed time limit. The payout was based on how many points you got on a sliding scale. As I recall the maximum payout was £12.

The engineers who built the machine programmed it to get easier each time you failed to win money in a game and it got harder each time you did win. They made a mistake though because a good enough Tetris player could beat the machine on its hardest setting.

There were about 3 or 4 students in the town that could empty these machines. Amazingly at the Student Union bar they came around once a week and filled the machine with cash. Those of us that could empty the machine would race to get to the machine first in order to empty it!

I kept records of what I made and it was over £1000 which is not a lot of money now but it bought a lot of beer for me when I was 19 years old and skint! And I still managed to find enough time to get a degree!

Eventually these machines disappeared no doubt because the people in charge realised that the only people making money were the people playing them!

Cinderella could have told you that. In her traumatic state, she sorted the ashes and embers in the fireplace. It's a therapeutic practice; it's getting down to the details, sorting, sifting, engrossing oneself in very small things. Tetris is the same. The player sorts block, putting them into their perfect place, not leaving any holes. It's more than a distraction.
Changing the subject, you ever consider the existential implications of Tetris? An endless stream of blocks requiring your total concentration

According to the DSM-IV PTSD isn't even diagnosable for 3 MONTHS after the event. Obviously, asking people after a week how many times they remembered a movie isn't really related to PTSD. Traumatic Memories are laid down differently, more sensory in nature- than a mere 'thought'. (No source on that, sorry. There are debates about changes in brain structure and things with PTSD) They loosely define flashbacks. In PTSD, flashbacks can include feeling inj

In today's modern lifestyle, it's hard to find the time to do everything. But now with SweeperBot [sweeperbot.org], there's no need to give up minesweeper!

SweeperBot plays mineseeper for you! It's free, it's efficient, and it's open source! [cpan.org] Simply download and double-click, and then spend your time doing more productive things... like playing freecell.

You must be new here. There's a little checkbox right next to "Post Anonymously," just above the text area where you write. When we troll and flame the site, we always tick that, so that it won't affect our karma, the way I just did.